Jurors recommend death for rapist-killer

Jason Michael Balcom sits as the verdict is read in his second penalty phase trial in Superior Court in Santa Ana on Thursday. Balcom was convicted last year of special-circumstances murder for killing Malinda Godfrey Gibbons in 1988. The first jury deadlocked on the penalty phase but this jury recommended the death penalty. PAUL BERSEBACH, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

SANTA ANA – A convicted rapist sat impassively in court Thursday as an Orange County jury announced that he faces the death penalty for the sexual assault and stabbing death of a pregnant, 22-year-old Costa Mesa housewife during a brutal six-week crime spree in the summer of 1988.

The jury deliberated for eight hours before deciding that Jason Michael Balcom, 43, should receive the maximum punishment for the special circumstances murder of Malinda Godfrey Gibbons, who was beaten, sexually assaulted, bound and stabbed in the chest.

Several members of Gibbons' family, including her mother, two brothers, a sister and her husband, sat silently holding hands in the courthouse gallery as the verdict was announced. They said later that they were relieved that the case was finally over and that they could go on with their lives.

Deputy District Attorney Matt Murphy argued that the aggravating factors of the slaying, plus the violent attacks on three other women and the lingering devastation to those who cared about Gibbons, warranted a death sentence.

It was the second penalty phase for Balcom, who was 18 when he launched his one-man crime spree a few days after he was released from a juvenile detention facility in Orange County. The first jury voted to convict Balcom of special circumstances murder in March 2012, but deadlocked on the penalty question.

Defense attorney Dolores Yost argued that Balcom was the product of an excruciating upbringing by an abusive single mother who was manipulative, self-absorbed and mentally ill. She claimed that Balcom suffered sexual and emotional abuse as a child and was in crisis when he was released from the Los Pinos juvenile facility a few months after his 18th birthday.

Balcom, who is already serving a 50-year prison term for a September 1988 rape in Battle Creek, Mich., now faces sentencing by Superior Court Judge Francisco Briseno on June 14. No Orange County judge has ever overruled a jury's death penalty recommendation.

Malinda Godfrey Gibbons was 22 and pregnant in the summer of 1988 when she and her husband Kent moved from Utah into a Costa Mesa apartment when he landed a job in Orange County. Just a few days later – on July 18, 1988 – Kent Gibbons returned home from work and found the semi-nude body of his wife. She had been bound and gagged with his ties, stabbed in the chest and sexually assaulted.

The case was unsolved for more than 15 years.

In 2004, the Michigan state crime lab contributed to a national DNA database of convicted felons, allowing Costa Mesa police detectives to compare genetic materials recovered from Gibbons' body to past and present Michigan inmates. Jason Balcom was a match.

This was the first death-penalty verdict in Orange County in more than a year.

Balcom will likely join 59 convicted killers from Orange County on death row.

There are more than 700 murderers statewide who are under a sentence of death, but there has not been an execution in the state for more than seven years, in part because of a moratorium on executions while a judge decides whether lethal injection is crfuel and unusual punishment.

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Jason Michael Balcom sits as the verdict is read in his second penalty phase trial in Superior Court in Santa Ana on Thursday. Balcom was convicted last year of special-circumstances murder for killing Malinda Godfrey Gibbons in 1988. The first jury deadlocked on the penalty phase but this jury recommended the death penalty. PAUL BERSEBACH, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Malinda Godfrey Gibbons, 22. HANDOU
Jason Michael Balcom, left, looks towards the gallery after jurors voted for the death penalty during his second penalty phase trial in court in Santa Ana on Thursday. Balcom was convicted last year of special-circumstances murder for killing Malinda Godfrey Gibbons in 1988. The first jury deadlocked on the penalty phase. PAUL BERSEBACH, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Deputy District Attorney Matt Murphy listens as Jason Michael Balcom, top left, sits with his lawyers Dolores Yost and Thomas Lo as the verdict is read in his second penalty phase trial in Superior Court in Santa Ana on Thursday. Balcom was convicted last year of special-circumstances murder for killing Malinda Godfrey Gibbons in 1988. PAUL BERSEBACH, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Jason Michael Balcom, left, sits with his lawyers Dolores Yost and Thomas Lo as the verdict is read in his second penalty phase trial in Superior Court in Santa Ana on Thursday. PAUL BERSEBACH, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Jeanne Godfrey and Kent Gibbons, the mother and widower of Malinda Godfrey Gibbons, hug outside Superior Court in Santa Ana on Thursday after the sentencing of Jason Michael Balcom. The jury recommended the death penalty for Balcom in his second penalty phase trial for killing Malinda Gibbons in 1988. PAUL BERSEBACH, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Jason Michael Balcom enters Superior Court in Santa Ana for the verdict reading in his second penalty phase trial on Thursday. Balcom was convicted last year of special-circumstances murder for killing Malinda Godfrey Gibbons in 1988. PAUL BERSEBACH, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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